Before I write anything this week, I need to wish my mother a belated happy birthday. While we celebrated with family on Saturday night, the actual day of her birthday, Ihad neglected to get something organized in time for last week’s paper.

In fact, it often makes for cute video clips shared online at Facebook or Youtube. If I don’t share a cat video a day, something’s amiss. Yesterday, I saw and shared a new favorite – a cat swatting out pieces in the small, wooden tower of a Jenga game with its human . . . and having wonderful, laugh-inducing success.

At the end of each winter, I get antsy to get out in the brand, spanking new spring season. We all do, right? And we’ve had a nice taste of spring for the past couple weeks – just enough to make us anxiously want even more – and soon!

It wasn't just birds in the air. I saw helicopters everywhere, flying offshore oil workers to here and there. Striking white ibises with blue eyes that would have made old blue eyes, Frank Sinatra, croon a sad song, delighted me.

That’s what it seemed like: heart pounding, palms sweaty, legs weak — but still in one piece, breathing again, thankful you only had a near-miss. History, however, is not so benign, as you’ll see in “Dead Wake” by Erik Larson.

One of the observations I made during our recent visit to Nepal was very unexpected: it seems people everywhere are fascinated by dead bodies. We all know about highway accident gawkers: drivers slow to a crawl, trying to get a glimpse of the carnage. Let’s face it, if they were only looking at the mangled cars, they wouldn’t have to slow down as much.

It appears – gosh, I hate to say it and potentially jinx it! But here it goes anyway. It appears we might just be having an early spring this year. In fact, it seems like we’re having a processional of spring weather to lead up to the start of spring itself, if we can hang onto this through March 20.

The Declaration of Independence says those are things you get just for living here. But did you ever notice that the third one takes some work? You have to pursue happiness, but how can you chase something so ethereal?

Major League Soccer announced that Minnesota will be the home of a new Major League Soccer team. The owners also announced they want to build a new open-air stadium for the team. Do you think it should be funded through public subsidies or privately funded?